Saints Row Would Be Better Without Dildos, Says Cliff Bleszinski

This afternoon Cliff Bleszinski–industry giant perhaps best known for his role as designer in the Unreal and Gears of War franchises–has been sounding off on what he thinks makes the Saints Row franchise great, and not so great.

Like dildos.

Gathered from a string of tweets on his Twitter profile, Bleszinski seems to think the franchise has great game mechanics–enough to “give GTA a run for their money”–but finds that their presentation is a little too “immature”, saying “[Battlefield] didn’t go after [Call of Duty] by putting dicks on their guns.”

I played the timed trial and it was too over the top for me. Saints Row 2 was MUCH better since I could actually take the story and characters seriously, thus giving me an incentive to want to keep playing.

I dont understand why people are disagreeing with you. Its a known fact that the majority of the Saints Row fanbase thought the third was garbage compared to SR2. For the people saying the third was awesome, have you guys played the other games?

Im just gonna go ahead and sacrifice my agrees and say that i had a ton of fun freeroaming in Saints 3 and overall liked it a lot. I had more fun playing co-op in Saints 2 but other than that i had way more fun with 3. The single player missions were just so over-the-top and epic. The opening mission says it all. Jumping out of a plane, freefalling, catching Shaundi, dropping her, shooting out the window of another plane and smashing through its window, catching another parachute, catching Shaundi again and then parachuting. lmao

Sure there was some immature stuff like dildos and whatnot that didnt really need to be there but the campaign was really good and for the most part didn't have that stuff. And honestly, other than Dildos, there wasnt really any sex jokes. Just over-the-top stuff like that batmobile car and jets and the shark gun and stuff xD

I liked 3 personally but the DLC SUCKED. 2 was better but it wasnt to do with the dildo bat. Nobody forced you to use it throughout the game (I think you had to use in 1 mission). The great thing about Saints Row is you play most missions how you want to play them.

I loved Saint rows the third. Everyone complains about the purple dildo. I in fact never equipped it once. I actually bought SR2 on steam but still have to play it. Either way I like SR the third. Playing it co-up makes it even better.

Strange....for I thought I remember seeing that SR3 was the most successful....and all I heard from all my friends who had bought it before me kept on saying how awesome it was and how you can just buy it and just get right in and don't need to play the other games. All positive things of it....

'Its a Known Fact' - . . . You should be a reporter and start using that line on a lot of things.

@Mounce Actually Saints Row 2 and the third were both very similar in sales and reception so neither one was more successful. Yea it was easy for newcomers to get in the game because volition completely neglected the story from the two previous games which to be honest was a slap to the face to the series hardcore fanbase. The third was way too over the top and got stale fast. SR2 had way better missions, activities, a better city by a long shot which had so many things to explore with a bunch of easter eggs, better characters, and the story if I would even call it one was garbage compared to previous games. All I am saying is SR2 had a good balance of being serious and crazy which is the reason the series got popular in the first place. The third lacked the charm that the first two had. If you go to the Saints Row online forums it will be very clear that the majority of the community doesn't like the third. Maybe for newcomers the game was fun but for the fans of the series previous installments the game was a huge disappointment. This Angry Joe review of the game will prove why my statement is valid: http://youtu.be/XHB0CQ3uPj4

Have you not played Bulletstorm? It has just as many [email protected] jokes as Saint's 3. The dildo in SR3 is nothing more than a visual [email protected] joke... my comment was just saying it's the pot calling the kettle black, but I was also joking at the same time. You seem like a very serious person though.

There's no point in trying to be serious. They know what they're competing against and serve up something different.

Being serious is pointless because if people want that, they'll go with GTA. I loved Saints Row 3 because they intentionally made sure every mission was over the top ridiculous. It's for FUN! Not an engaging story.

Extactly!! f789790 says it all! This is not a GTA, it's a Saints Row it always had the sense of humor that GTA never had and it never will. So what it has dildos? if you don't want to use then you won't use it.. if you want, then go ahead. It can be a serious game or it can be a funny game, do what you like. It has those 2 options. That's why I love Saints Row and prefer it over GTA a thousand times.

SR3 was great. SR4 needs to keep uping the anti. If you want down play go play Grand Theft Auto. Saints Row knows what it is, GTA keeps jumping around trying to find a solid grounding. it went from wacky in San' Andreas to WAY to boring in GTA4 (graphics and engine physics don't mean nothing if it bores your sensless) And Cliffy B.. No he can talk and talk till the cows come home with his space trashcan men. and all the gears games were nothing special (when fans flip out in a game series when the double barrel shotgun gets introduce and its game breaking. then you did something wrong.)

All the gears games were nothing special? Please. There some of the highest rated games this gen. Not only that, Gears 1 basically made TPS popular again on consoles, and its cover mechanics were a step up from previous games like Kill.Switch.

As for Saints Row. I love the franchise. Saints 3 was straight awesome. I LOVED the over the top action. Oh, an airplane is coming right at you? Shoot the windows, fly through it while shooting the fuck out of everyone, and jump out the back. Oh, your in a wrestling ring? Grab a chainsaw and cut people in half. The game constantly tossed crazy situations, and was plain fun. GTA IV was a boring, slow game. IMO, Saints > GTA/Crackdown/etc.

But I think Cliff has a point. Adding Dildo's to the game just seemed crude. It wasn't necessary and didn't really add anything to the game.

Another Gears Fanboy. (made TPS popular again..) Its called Resident Evil 4, Cold Fear, Killswitch, Windback,MAX Payne,Ratchet & Clank, Jax and Daxter, Tomb Raider, Syphon Filter. I swear Gears fans have blinders when it comes to third person shooters. All these games came before gears. And Gears brought nothing new, maybe annoying shake cam' which everyone hates. And as for cover system You can run through Gears on the hardest setting and not use cover. Go play Killswitch (the king of cover shooting.) and get back to gaming community.

And Cliffy B. is just talking to talk, he makes a comment about Saints Row 3 dildo, however none of the wild and zany stuff in Saints Row 1-2, or early Grand Theft Autos.

by the way, Bulletstorm, was Cliffy Bs' coming out of the closet game, and he has the nerve to judge anyone lol. Go mack another subpar game, and stop talking.

And the reason GEARS sold so well is cause Microsoft has crap for exclusives. they buy rights to DLC and first releases but cannot lock down a studio to save their lives. And what magic Cliffy had is gone. Gears 3 was a joke (and before anyone says well it sold well.) Well of course it did, you have Forza, Halo, and Gears. not tons of options in the way for exclusive fanboys to choose from.

SR3 lacked tact in general. They killed Johnny in 5 minutes, for crap's sake. The story was great up until they killed Julius...it was like they took recognition of the irony and killed it in place of goofiness. It was a tad disappointing that Saints Row 2's excellent story telling didn't go anywhere with the ironic stuff, and neither did SR3.

I don't think it was the over-the-topness that made SR3 a lesser game. For me, it was the lack of content. I don't think it would've been so disappointing if there was a build-up into the wackiness. Instead, it was ridiculous bullshit from the get-go, which just gets boring.

I had a blast with SR2 but Sr3 was just all over the place and just too crazy.

Look I love the fact we can act crazy in SR series but a little bit of a mature tone would do wonders for it. Give us all the craziness but than also provide a proper story that makes sense and is fun to play

I loved SR3 and thought it was the best out of the series. I do also believe they have the power to rival GTA because the engine and mechanics are on point. The shooting and controls are top notch. The hand to hand combat destroys GTA in all areas. if they did do a game like Heat, Traffic, or Michael Mann production I think they would blow the roof off. Everyone's fav mission in GTA was the bank robbery if you do a story that's believable and engrossing, you have a hit. I love the customization as well. Playing as myself was such a blast.

SR3 gives GTA a run for its money BECAUSE it's so over-the-top and silly. If you play the game you realize that under the surface there are a lot of intelligent and humorous references made to many aspects of film, tv, literature, music, etc.

GTA is much more grounded in realism; for SR to aspire to be like Heat or any other Michael Mann film would just make it into more of a, "GTA clone," since GTA already utilizes those tones.

Exactly. They stayed different from GTA and it worked great! If it was like GTA, I wouldn't have bought it because I already have GTA.

If you want to see what happens when a game tries to be more serious like a competitor, look at the Tony Hawk Skateboarding series. Skate was a success and they tried to follow. Nobody wanted it because Skate already did it perfectly.

i loved sr1 so much and others as well but with all honesty if got down to it and get passed all the flash\over the top crazy stuff, SR is just a pretty cheap plastic game, it's not in GTA 4's leagues GTA4's quality, attention to detail, physics, density, atmosphere, humor and overall magical feel of the city is second to non